The Captain's Bed
by Momosportif
Summary: A series of drabbles for captain and first mate pairs, all from the first mates' POVs. So far includes ShanksBen and WBMarco. Character's are Oda's. Enjoy!
1. The Bed's Too Big Without You

**Original Story Summary** (before we knew it was a chapter fic, lol) : Waiting for the captain, Beckman's mind wanders to a place he hopes to never be. Meant to probe one side of what it means to be the first mate. Another failed attempt at the 300 word story. XD

* * *

Laying here, I can't understand how he does it, the captain, especially with a smile on his face like it's nothing.

Now, I understand some of this sinking sickness comes from the sensation of waiting, but I'm not about to explain it all away as anticipation. He's a great man, the captain, but I know he must feel it too, laying here.

Even I feel small and my boots are propped on the footboard while my elbows brush the wall. When he's here, the captain, laying still but for breathing, how could he miss it with his head in the center of his pillow and his feet bare and dead, toes to the ceiling.

It's a big responsibility, I know, but I'm not about to explain it all away as the pressure of the post. Pressure's never touched a man like him - of course, I'm extrapolating here.

I've never really met another man like him.

I'd give an arm as well if only to have the chance to change the laws of physics so I could lay here with him but not be here at the same time, so I could see how he looks when he lays here alone.

For just one night. That would be enough and worth an arm or more perhaps.

We don't come from an age where a ship moves forward because dreams fill the sails, but I have a goal at least, a hope at most. And that's to make sure he does whatever it is he was made to do on this earth, this sea. And when he's done that, it will be to lay here with him, the captain, and breathe ourselves to sleep.

Which is why I'm here now, I guess, waiting for him, because we like to practice.

It's getting hard to wait though. Not because I'm impatient - because it lets me think without him, the captain. Right now, I'm thinking how he feels, laying here, without me, because I'm trying to imagine how I would feel, laying here, but not waiting.

The captain.

"Ahhhh..."

The door opens, he takes a breath; I watch it all the way from his feet to his chest to his smile.

"Sorry about that, Beckman."

Shrugs off the cloak, slips off the sandals as he sits; I watch the way his neck bends, tired.

"It always seems there's something."

He surprises me, how fast he spins around, pulls his knees up and over, flops beside me before I have the time to blink. Brushes nose to nose on his way to the place he's caved out in my side over time, where only he can fit.

I move my head along the head board, make room. "Always something."

"Hm."

We breathe. And the bed feels small again.


	2. The Nicest Thing

Marco struggles to come to terms with his transition from first mate to captain.

* * *

The captain's bed, like the man himself, is gone. This is my bed, which is not the captain's bed, but which must be now, at least in name.

It's newer and emptier and so, so, so much smaller.

I've never been in it before, which is also different from the captain's bed. Here, I lay on my back and reach my arms up where my fingers touch headboard and out where I can run my palms along the bed's edge or stretch my legs to rest my heels against the footboard. In my head, over and over, I know it's me, I know it's me now and I hover above the mattress, trying to feel the ground again.

I used to sleep deep in the captain's bed, wrapped in the sheeted surface, held up and held safe. And I could feel a heartbeat through the frame that pulsed into the floors and traveled to every bed and across the waves into hearts just like mine. One heart, true, but I don't feel it here, in this place, in this bed.

In the captain's bed there was a man and it didn't always have to be me. Finding myself was easy, grounded by a hand and a fingertip on my lips.

It was so, so, so much bigger, but I was cupped in the batting and blankets and rocked in the heartbeat of a single man with a single heart that was still bigger than his arms could spread or his feet could reach.

I am a man, and I am the captain, and I'm in a bed, and my heart is beating, but I cannot find myself here, in this so, so, so small place.

I can find the headboard and the edges and the footboard and a tight pulse and it seems like I should be somewhere in between. So I wonder if the captain's bed is where I am, safely sheltered in the sea of sheets that smelled warm even after they should have started smelling sterile. But the captain's bed, like the man himself, is gone. Which must mean I may be too. Except that I'm here in this, my bed, where it _is_ hard to find myself but where I can feel my way into being.

I am not ready to be a man, so I turn to my side, as if this was the captain's bed, and pretend this place is bigger by making myself smaller. I remember the scent of worn warmth and hold myself safe.

In this place, I fall asleep in the captain's bed and think about his heart beating. Mine can never be that big.


End file.
